


blood

by Veniae



Category: Critical Role (Web Series)
Genre: Canon-Typical Violence, Gen, MAJOR SPOILERS FOR EP 68!, also thursday cannot come quickly enough, but take this pain for the time being, when u write the sads but it turns out hopeful
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-09-27
Updated: 2016-09-27
Packaged: 2018-08-18 04:17:48
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 748
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8148856
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Veniae/pseuds/Veniae
Summary: Grog has his axe, his rage, and his determination to protect his family.Sometimes, that's not good enough.





	

**Author's Note:**

> _Spoilers for ep. 68! If you haven't watched it yet, you might want to not read this for the time being._

There’s blood everywhere.

Most anytime else, Grog’d be perfectly fine with that. He likes blood. The smell of it wakes him up better than a punch right into the solar plexus, and the colour makes him _angry_. And the taste is like… Grog is a purveyor of fine spirits, but nothing else has that salty, tickling kick.

Yeah; Grog is like, _okay_ with blood in general.

Not on this island on the left ass cheek of geography, though. Everything’s fucking _off_ here, and even his rage doesn’t seem to be fucking helping.

He can swear to at least six gods or goddesses that he has glass shards up his ass. He’s cut and bruised from the fiery burst earlier which sent him slamming into _so many_ trees. There’s a dull sort of ache in his bones after Scanlan’s magic threw him up and drove him into the hard-cutting- _painful_ ground. He guesses he probably cracked something. He has to squeeze his eyes against the persistent sting of blood dripping into them.

If he doesn’t kill something _soon_ , Grog’s getting so damn pissed off.

And then Ripley up and appears right out of his reach. She looks beat up, too, and if she’d crawled out of her hole just a foot closer…

Gror roars and hurls his greataxe.

It hisses through the air and finds purchase with a wet sucking sound. Ripley whimpers, inhales through gritted teeth, staggers back. For a moment, Grog thinks that _that might just do it_ , but she stays on her feet. She squares her shoulders and it seems that the axe lodged in her chest is just a little inconvenience. She raises her weapon.

There’s a second when Grog expects her to aim it at him. He wants her to, even, wants to see her face when her tiny metal balls do nothing to him before he proceeds to smash the face in question with his fist.

But Ripley aims across the crater. Her mouth curls in a grimace that is animal-like, and for a moment, Grog is almost afraid.

He follows her eyes. His family is clustered right across from them, Vex and Vax and Keyleth and…

Percy. Absurdly tiny, the way he’s curled up face-down on the ground. Grog’s anger flickers for a moment--he isn’t, like, _dead_ , is he?--before it comes back stronger--of _course_ he isn’t, and Grog won’t let that--

Before Grog can make a single step towards her, Ripley shoots.  

Nothing happens. Grog looks between Ripley and his family, trying to understand what’s going on.

Vex screams. Then, everything happens at the same time.

Grog feels like that time in the Underdark when a little piece of shit fucked his brain up, but his body knows what it’s doing. He’s still seeing red when his axe sinks into (captured, defeated, _terrified)_ Ripley’s flesh again, this time severing her body in half. It doesn’t feel good.

It doesn’t feel like anything.

The silence that follows pierces his ears.

He’s not angry anymore, just tired. Everyone starts flitting around him and talking over each other, but he doesn’t bother listening to them. He walks over to Percy.

There’s blood everywhere.

It’s Percy’s, probably. Looks brownish on his skin and purple on his clothes, and it’s cold and sticky to the touch. The human himself is more a shapeless heap than the haughty noble with the stick up his ass. Percy has always been more than a haughty noble with a stick up his ass, but now, he’s none of these things.

He’s dead.

Grog doesn’t know all that much about stuff. He hasn’t read books like Percy has, and he can’t make things out of nothing like he does-- _did_. He knows how to kill enemies, and how to keep his family alive.

Usually.

Not today, it seems. Not well enough.

He knows one other thing, though. It’s something he shares with Percy. He knows how to fight crazy odds, like when you go against your whole old family for your new one, or when you save your home from a bunch of asshole vampires. Or when you die and wake up again.

He’s done it. That means Percy can, too.

He kneels next to his body and scoops it up into his arms. He’s light and breakable, and Grog takes care not to rattle him too much as he gets back up to his feet.

“C’mon,” he turns to the others, interrupting their fighting. “Let’s take him home.”

 

**Author's Note:**

> l m a o guys i'm so sorry i Cope by writing pain
> 
> in case it hasn't been obvious, cloak and dagger hit me _hard_ and i'm still reeling. what a fun story line, huh??
> 
> cry with me [@veniaebot](http://veniaebot.tumblr.com) ily all <3


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